Fun @ Home

Some of you may know we plan to home school Holly, some of you may not... if you didn't, you do now! We spend a lot of time at home doing fun projects, themed days and the such. Each week we meet with several friends and experience a coop preschool day with the kids - we have a lot of fun each week. Our theme over the next couple weeks is 'All About Me' so today Holly & I also started this as a theme for at home. Today we worked on her favorite color - orange!

She did a big collage on orange out of several magazine clippings she found. Cutting up my magazines was a fun task and one she had to ask several times "Is this okay Mommy?" - I had to clarify it was okay with these 10 magazines only, ones we will use for school projects. Everything she clipped was orange and we worked on our scissor skills. She also practiced writing her 'O' and the word orange a few times. We sang a color song on orange, blended paint to make orange and she enjoyed an orange snack (orange yogurt, cheddar cheese and orange Fruit Loops). The morning was finished with her making her own play dough colored with orange Koolaid - smelling like orange and looking orange.

Not a bad way to spend enjoying your favorite color - right? Especially if it's all in fun!

Parade & Park Fun

Friday was the Puyallup Fair Parade in downtown - where they run some bulls into the fair which is the official opening. We met up with friends and played at the park and then headed over to enjoy the parade, finishing back up on the playground. It was a fun morning!

Here are some of the kids waiting for the parade... will it ever start?

Meet The Girls

Most folks come over and don't realize we have cats... three of them! Due to Strawberry' escape capabilities we put all three critters away when company comes over. And, if you have children - we keep them out of harms way... meaning cat claws. So, if you have never met the girls - here they are in all their furry cuteness!

Strawberry is our famed escape artist! After spending years outdoors she longs for the warm sun... and who can blame her! But, since our neighborhood is not a cat friendly place she if forced to be caged in our home. Poor thing! She is our oldest cat, but she is still pretty fiesty - Riley brings that out big time! I would classify Strawberry as the head hancho of the house, but Riley is constantly challenging her... keeps her young & on her toes at all times! Strawberry is our friendliest cat, a lap cat in pure form. She has an abnormal obsession with Bryan and stalks him whenever he is home.

Huckleberry is our laziest furball although she started life out as a complete ball of fire, literally climbing the walls. In our first home we had a classic 1950's wood decor cut wall divider that Huckleberry spent many, many hours climbing and sleeping in, not on, but in. She has fashioned her way to sleeping, sleeping, eating and sleeping. But, come 8:00pm - she comes out of lurkdom for attention - and if you give it to her, she does NOT want you to stop. She swipes at you if you stop petting her... I mean how dare you stop petting her!

Riley is our dump cat. Yes, she was rescued from the local dump at a mere 4ish weeks old - we had to bottle nurse her, care for her and the such until she learned all those skills on her own. She is probably our neediest cat - for Bryan & I that is. If your name is Adam... she obviously has an inner resentment towards you, a good memory of torture as a kitten I am sure! Riley was almost named Dingleberry, but Bryan wouldn't let me - however, now that he knows her personality better he might be easily pursuaded, hah! Actually Riley is a big ol sweet pea, fun as all get out, plays fetch like a dog and will ONLY drink from a running fawcett never the water bowl - how primal is that... a waterbowl, hmph! So, if you ever hear whining in the bathroom or she stalks you as you head in - just turn on the water and she'll be happier than a clam!

French Fry

This afternoon I treated Holly to Happy Meal at McDonalds, she ordered a burger & fries. We get home to enjoy lunch and she eats some fries with a big ol' "Yummmm!". Then she proceeds to ask if I know how to make french fries, which of course I do, but share....

Me: "Well, not really. Why do you ask?"
Holly: "I really love french fries."
Me: "Do you know what french fries are made from?"
Holly: "Sugar."
Me: "Oh really. Well, how do you think they are made?"
Holly: Pondering for a while.... "You take a little French and just fry it!"

So, just in case you were wondering how to make french fries... that would be the recipe!

My Little Chef

Yesterday we had Grandma Linda & Grandpa Paul coming over for dinner. We wanted to make a special dessert to share and Holly wanted it to have bananas in it. So, I took a tried and true recipe I love and altered it to a Banana Lush. Holly helped to make it!!! She is a great little helper in the kitchen - in fact she is quiet fluent with making pancakes thanks to Daddy. I bet if you quizzed her she could list all the ingredients for pancakes from scratch! Here are some photos of her helping me yesterday and the recipes follows below:

Banana Lush

Crust:

1/2 cup butter melted

1 cup flour

1/2 cup crushed walnuts

*melt butter, add flour and nuts - blend well. Press into the bottom of an 8x8 pan. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes. Let cool.

Layer one:

1 brick of cream cheese

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 cup whip cream (cool whip)

Mix well until smooth.

Layer two:

1 large box of Banana pudding

2 cups of cold milk

Mix well until smooth

Layer three:

Cool whip

Sliced bananas

Homemade Applesauce

Our neighbor gave us a bunch of Yellow Transparent Apples - very cute, small, tart apples. The kind that are perfect for tarts, pies and applesauce. I have opted to try my hand at applesauce - with sucess. The best part, it is sooo easy - I had no idea! I am planning to freeze some of this up and when our own apple tree is ready I will be making loads more... now, to figure out more freezer space!

I had the equivelant of about 12 large apples, so this was the recipe I used.

Applesauce

12 large apples

2 1/4 cup water

1 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Peel and cut up apples, removing core and place in pan with water, sugars and cinnamon. Mix well and boil down for about 15 minutes. Let cool for a few moments then mash with fork or potato masher as you see fit. Chill & enjoy!

36th Birthday...

This past weekend I spent celebrating my 36th birthday while camping with family - enjoying a full weekend of fun, kayaking and quadding! It was fun!!! The hard part of doing activities like kayaking or quadding is that you really don't want to take your nice camera with you in fear you'll get it wet or break it... so, we really never have photos of those activities. After this weekend I have come to the conclusion that I need to start carrying one of our older point & shoot digitals for this reason alone. So, hopefully some other moments in our lives will be recorded.

Highlights from the weekend though include taking our kayaks out for a spin. My sister in law Sue also came with us. We went over to Mason Lake and enjoyed the open waters. Even though the water creeped her out, mainly the logged filled wetland area, I think Sue had fun... and I hope that she will soon get a kayak to go out more often with us... HINT, HINT!

We hung around camp and visited, went for a few walks, took Holly to Lake Trask's annual kids carnival and ate loads of wonderful foods!

But, the highlight of my weekend was.... the blind, leading the blind! Yes, you read that right -- while quadding Sue was our lead - since we don't know the area well & she (supposedly) does! She took us all over as we had a blast. Then she ventured into a whole new area that kept getting farther and farther out, smaller and smaller trails... until she was lost. Yes, lost! We had already been out a long time and now we had no idea of where we were. After some dead end trails we found our way back out to a logging road that followed power lines. We took that for a few miles, the wrong way until it dead ended and then looped back finally crossing paths with familiarity. When Sue hit that spot - she stopped and looked at us and said "I am never doing that again, ever!". So, after about 3 1/2 hours we made our way back. We can laugh now, but I know we all had visions of walking back in the dark, LOL! It was fun though! Heck, I even went out the next day with her and let her lead again!